On 30 August - 1 September 2015 about 180 parliamentarians from around the Baltic Sea, Observers and invited guests gathered in Rostock for the 24th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. The conference resolution gives strong support to ScanBalt and the ScanBalt strategy 2015 – 2018, the EUSBSR flagship Health Region, proposed health economy initiatives and the RIS3 eHealth initiative led by Region Skåne. The conference calls for joint initiatives against multi-resistant bacteria.

ScanBalt BioRegion met excellent response to the new strategic focus discussed at the 6th Annual Forum of the European Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

On the Picture: Lars Lindsköld, Region Västra Götaland, CEO Image Repository, vice chairman of ScanBalt, presents the Baltic Sea region as one test site for development of health care products and services

Smart Chemistry Park is an innovation platform and a cluster for SME's within the fields of chemistry and technology in the Turku Region, Finland. The Smart Chemistry Park concept (the idea, the preparation work and the implementation) has been created by Turku science Park in tight collaboration with the SME's.

The strategy aims to: (1) make it easier for businesses to explore the BSR as a market and development site; (2) promote shared use of knowledge and innovation structures and universities; (3) assist regions to gain economic development from Baltic Sea Region collaboration.

A process has in 2014 been initiated aiming for the "Baltic Sea Region as one test site for development of health care products and services". If successful this is a huge benefit for SMEs which faster and easier can bring their innovations to the market and it improves the health care offered to patients. For the regions it means more efficient use of existing research and innovation infra-structure and economic development.

Get insight into the sector, the product lines and the companies: The chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry is one of the most promising sectors in Latvia and includes the manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products, basic pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical preparations, as well as rubber and plastic products.

Dear colleague,
You are still in time to submit proposals for presentation at the VI International Conference on Environmental, Industrial and Applied Microbiology - BioMicroWorld2015, which will be held in Barcelona (Spain) from 28 to 30 October 2015.

The deadlines for abstract submission are: 21 July for oral presentations and 4 August for poster/virtual presentations.

The ScanBalt EU Research Support Digest informs the members of ScanBalt about relevant open research funding schemes and other financial sources. For further information about ScanBalt see www.scanbalt.org

Join the process towards the Baltic Sea Region as one test site for development of health care products and services. A process has in 2014 been initiated aiming for the "Baltic Sea Region as one test site for development of health care products and services". If successful this is a huge benefit for SMEs which faster and easier can bring their innovations to the market and it improves the health care offered to patients. For the regions it means more efficient use of existing research and innovation infra-structure and economic development. Read more

Horizon 2020

Societal challenges "Health, demographic change and wellbeing"

H2020-HOA-01-2015: Horizon Prize – Better use of Antibiotics

The Horizon Prize for better use of antibiotics is a €1 million prize that will be awarded to the person or team who can most effectively meet the following challenge: develop a rapid test that can identify at the point of care patients with upper respiratory tract infections that can safely be managed without antibiotics.

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is Europe's largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for patients. IMI supports collaborative research projects and builds networks of industrial and academic experts in order to boost pharmaceutical innovation in Europe.

IMI 2 - Call 4 2014 is now closed. The following topics are under consideration for inclusion in future calls for proposals to be launched under IMI 2:

Patient perspective elicitation on benefits and risks of medicinal products, supplementing benefit risk assessments by regulators and HTAs (health technology assessments) from development through the entire life cycle

The Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) pilot is a fully-bottom-up measure in Horizon 2020 to promote close-to-the-market innovation activities, and open to all types of participants. FTI will be implemented in 2015 and 2016 with a total budget of €200 million (€100 million per year) across the Horizon 2020 priority "Societal Challenges" and the specific objective "Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies (LEITs)", without further topical restrictions.

The Fast Track to Innovation scheme is open for applications since January 6, 2015. Proposals can be submitted at any time, yet will be ranked three cut-off dates in 2015 (cut-off dates for 2016 will be made public at a later time).

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Oral/Poster Abstract Submissions:Abstracts can be uploaded by clicking here for consideration for oral or poster presentation. Abstracts should be 250 words and submitted as a pdf file. Closing date for abstract submissions has been extended to March 20th, 2015.

Extended Abstract Submissions:We also invite post-graduate students in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of their research programmes to submit an extended abstract. The format for this abstract should be a max of 2 pages with font size 12. The extended abstract should also include a one page letter of support from the students’ Academic mentor included as part of the abstract (this is not included in the 250 words). These extended abstracts will be considered for special Postgraduate Student Platform Presentations (15 mins + 5 mins questions). Representatives from the Irish Division of the SGM will be selected from the Postgraduate Platform Presentations and invited to enter the 2016 SGM Sir Howard Dalton Young Microbiologist of the Year Competition (http://www.sgm.ac.uk/en/grants-prizes/travel-research-funds.cfm/sir-howard-dalton-young-microbiologist-of-the-year-competition). Please click here to upload your extended abstracts.